Tracing the postmodern Gandhi: Khadi, Village Industries, and the zeal of Swaraj

- By Adrita Gogoi*

Abstract

The paper intends to analyse Mahatma Gandhi’s postmodernism in his distinct articulation of khadi and village industries in India. Lloyd Rudolph and Sussane Rudolph have attempted to establish Gandhi as a postmodern thinker in his approach and method, bringing in various instances where Gandhi was unique and distant from others and the west, and providing an alternative. The postmodern attribute of Gandhi can be traced to the Indian freedom movement against British colonialism. One of Gandhi's political weapons was the khadi and village industries. Khadi and village industries, which were a result of the Swadeshi movement in India, were perfected at the hands of Gandhi. Not only its swadeshi avatar but the sector was also seen as having the potential of bringing a utopian decentralized village to India, which Gandhi idealized. The paper hence takes into account khadi and village industries as Gandhi's unique political methods which makes and establishes Gandhi as a postmodern thinker.

Introduction

Khadi and Village Industries were a virtuous emblematic symbol that was perfected by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi during the freedom movement of India from British colonialism. Lisa Trivedi discusses the different ways in which khadi was turned into a national symbol by the nationalists and the common people, through visual vocabulary and communication which according to Trivedi led to a mass national consciousness.¹ Khadi and village industries in India broadly can be related to three things. Firstly, in terms of the economy of the nation; secondly, a large section of the rural population of India is dependent on it and third, it is a product of Indian nationalism articulated by Gandhi. But what is strikingly noteworthy is that khadi and village industries in India which constitute the village economy of the country took shape as a result of dynamic forces that was operating at large during the days of the nationalist movement against the British colonial power. The first serious engagement in the sector emerged when Gandhi identified khadi and village industries as a basic and necessary part of the rural economy and evolved various means and methods not only to project it in terms of acceptability in the Indian situation but also to make it a basic necessity of human life. Khadi and village industries had so distinct and special emphasis in Gandhi's analysis that he referred to khadi as a ‘birth-right’.² The nature of the Indian freedom struggle was not uncommon, while some took to negotiation with the British to meet its demands, others resorted to armed struggle and revolution. In the fight against British colonialism and in the greater movement for rights, liberty, equality, and fraternity among the Indians, Gandhi devised his own methods which were not only philanthropic in nature but also had an adequate message to the Indians, different from the rest. Rahul Ramagundam studies the historical location of the ‘Khadi Movement’ in India in all its manifestations, tracing the whole genealogy of ‘khadi’- its significance, vitality, politics, and social issues in the colonial era arguing that the history of the khadi movement should not be restricted to its political facet only.³ While Ramagundam offers an understanding of the wider meaning of ‘khadi’- particularly the moral significance of the movement, it offers a spectrum of analysis to comprehend khadi not only as a political movement but also as a way of life. During the Indian freedom movement against British colonialism, Gandhi never conformed to the standard idea of fighting for freedom or submitting it to the ways and models of the imperialist West. This sidelines Gandhi and his philosophy from the other thinkers of India. Gandhi developed khadi and village industries in its indigeneity in carrying forward the Indian freedom movement and making Indians realize the greater understanding of ‘swaraj’. The distinct articulation of khadi and village industries as rooted in Indian traditional ways of subsistence and village life stands strong as an answer to not only colonialism and imperialism but also evolving postmodern ways of addressing the pertinent issues. Lisa Trivedi argues that the time when the world was complementing print capitalism for playing its due role in the rise of nationalism of the third world nations which has a minimal role to play in a country with vast numbers of illiterates, khadi was given that nationalist image having the sartorial symbol of awakening the masses from bondage, slavery and continued exploitation of the British.⁴ Accompanying khadi were the village industries. Khadi and village industries hence were the backbone of Gandhi's socio-political thought and struggle and there must be an understanding of the deeper traits which Gandhi wanted to convey to his fellow Indians. The enigmatic virtues of khadi and village industries are unknown to many, for the dilemma that exists is, it is left only with the swadeshi emblem and thus merely a symbol of Indian freedom and independence. For khadi and village industries was an ideology of Indianness, larger rights, freedom, and democracy in Indian society, polity, and the economy was ascertained by Gandhi in multiple ways.

Lloyd Irving Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph argue that Gandhi was a postmodern thinker who challenged the established order and paved a path of Indian nationalism diverging himself from the loyal constitutionalism and terrorist violence which Indians adopted.⁵ They state that Gandhi had powerful symbolic expressions of a whole set of cultural attitudes which draw on ‘self-control rather than self-expression, on self-suffering, and calls for the restraint of the impulse to retaliate’.⁶ These arguments, while presenting Gandhi as a postmodern thinker, are supplemented through khadi and village industries, which directly originated from his thought and efforts. The paper thus attempts to establish Gandhi's beliefs and practices as having postmodern attributes through his construction of khadi and village industries. While understanding Gandhi as a postmodern thinker, his philosophy must not be limited to the nonviolent methods of resistance he adopted known as Satyagraha.

The paper proceeds to understand and trace Gandhi's postmodernism by discussing his formulation of khadi and village industries in his distinctive works in the first section of the paper. The second section of the paper critically engages with the deeper meaning of the idea of Swaraj through khadi and village industries. In the third section, the paper discusses the sector of khadi and village industries as an answer to both capitalism and socialism, and the binaries of the existing world which sought to reduce the world and history into material terms. The fourth section discusses the ecological harmony which Gandhi was seeking through khadi and village industries which is relevant in the era of excessive industrialization. The final section critically discusses and attempts to establish Gandhi as a postmodern thinker through his greater construction of khadi and village industries in India which is very much contextual as well as distant from the usual power struggles of mankind.

Khadi and Village Industries in Gandhi’s work

Khadi and village industries⁷ are an integral part of the Indian economy constituting a large section of the rural population and a noted feature of the political economy of the nation. However, hand-spinning and hand-weaving were present since the Vedic Age and in the ancient and medieval periods of India.⁸ Yovesh Chandra Sharma mentions the development of art in ancient sacred books such as the Vedas, Manusmriti, Ramayana, and Mahabharata.⁹ But khadi and village industries entered the ‘nationalist vocabulary’¹⁰ of the country in the era of colonial rule. It entered during the swadeshi struggle of the nation under the leadership of M.K Gandhi. Khadi and village industries can be regarded as the core of Gandhi's entire social and moral philosophy. It centered around his whole moral, political social and economic thought. For M.K Gandhi, khadi is any “hand-woven cloth made from hand-spun thread. Silk-thread, just fibre and wool woven in this manner may be called, if we like, silk, jute and woolen Khadi respectively. But it would be ridiculous for anyone dressed in khadi silk to claim that he was encouraging khadi.”¹¹ Silk or woolen khadi were against the principles of M.K Gandhi. Gandhi said, “You ask about woolens and silks. Who wears them? Can the poor do so? Why should we take all the trouble for a few rich people. These things cannot become universal.”¹² Khadi was defined in terms of its universal application throughout the country. Gandhi defines the production of khadias “cotton growing, picking, ginning, cleaning, carding, slivering, spinning, sizing, dyeing, preparing the warp and the woof, weaving and washing.”¹³

To begin with the village industries Gandhi at first clarified the term ‘industry’. Gandhi said, “An industry to be Indian must be demonstrably in the interest of the masses; it must be manned by Indians both skilled and unskilled. Its capital and machinery should be Indian, and the labour employed should have a living wage and be comfortably housed, while the welfare of the children of the labourers should be guaranteed by the employers.”¹⁴ Gandhi’s list of village industries included dairying, hand-pounding of rice and hand-grinding of corn, ghani oil, gur and khandsari, bee-keeping, tanning, soap, hand-made paper, ink.¹⁵

Khadi and village industries were complementary to each other, which existed side by side. “Village Industries come in as handmaid to khadi. They cannot exist without Khadi. And Khadi will be robbed of its dignity without them”, Gandhi said.¹⁶ “Gandhi’s works seemed to address khadi and village industries differently in his major works. While talking about the banes of ‘machinery’ in Hind Swaraj, Gandhi inadvertently referred to the efficacy of the ancient and sacred ‘handlooms’ positioning them against machine-made cloth and the big mill factories of the country. Gandhi also dwelled at length on the evils of modern civilisation in Hind Swaraj. The book laid the grounds for a simple village-based rural life by denouncing modern civilization and machinery. Although khadi and village industries have not been mentioned by Gandhi in Hind Swaraj, it gave a serious understanding of Gandhi's system of thought in the Indian situation.¹⁷ “Handloom is the panacea for the growing pauperism of India.” Gandhi said in his autobiography.¹⁸ In his autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, Gandhi speaks about the ‘birth of khadi’ at the Satyagraha Ashram, Sabarmati; the discovery of the spinning wheel, the art of spinning, and the adoption of the practice of wearing ‘khadi’ by the Ashramites.¹⁹ In Constructive Programme Gandhi projected khadi and village industries as an integral part of his constructive agenda to achieve complete independence or ‘Purna Swaraj’. The Constructive Programme was a plea by Gandhi to every Indian to work for the cause of khadi and village industries. It laid out the structure of khadi and village industries in the decentralized village order.²⁰ The situation of khadi and village industries in Gandhi’s work points to the important place it holds in his thought. Gandhi was very much concerned about the importance of khadi and village industries.

Khadi had a stronger place in Gandhi's writings and thoughts than the village industries. Its importance as a symbol was used strongly by Gandhi compared to the village industries. This is because Khadi economics was voluntary and universal throughout as compared to the village industries and was so widely used in the swadeshi movement of the nation. “Khadi is the sun of the village solar system. The planets are the various industries which support khadi in return for the heat and the sustenance they derive from it.” Gandhi went on to say, “Khadi cannot be moved from its central place. Khadi will be the sun of the whole industrial solar system. All other industries will receive warmth and sustenance from the khadi industry.’²¹

The Road to Swaraj

Gandhi's socio-political thought resonates with the idea of swaraj more. Gandhi's khadi and village industries thus first stemmed from his ideas of swaraj. How Gandhi's articulation of khadi and village industries resonates with his idea of Swaraj? Swaraj for Gandhi is a sacred word, a Vedic word meaning self-rule and self-restraint and not freedom from all restraint which independence often means.²² Elaborating on his concept of swaraj, Gandhi said, “it is swaraj, when we learn to rule ourselves”.²³ In the words of Anthony J. Parel, Gandhi’s Swaraj had a clear distinction from swaraj or independence. For Gandhi, swaraj is self-rule, the rule of the self by the self, to be more precise it is the rule of the mind over itself and the passions of greed and aggression. In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi details the path of dharma for a simple life where there will be liberty, equality, fraternity, and prosperity. The struggle for independence was given a broad understanding by Gandhi implying that the end of British rule will merely bring independence and will not bring the real swaraj or self-rule. While fighting, British colonialism and imperialism, Gandhi tried to understand the deep-rooted problems of the Indian society which directly was responsible for its slavery and bondage. He devised methods to attain real swaraj which does not simply means achieving freedom from the British which independence often means. For Gandhi, the expulsion of the British seemed secondary. In a letter to HSL Polak, Gandhi clearly said that “it is not the British people who are ruling India, but it is modern civilisation, through its railways, telegraphs, telephones, and almost every invention which has been claimed to be a triumph of civilisation”.²⁴ Mentioning the cities of Bombay and Calcutta as the chief hotspots of the real plague, he directed his mission toward the villages of India. His main worry was if British rule was replaced by Indian rule with the same modern civilisation, real swaraj will be still a distant dream. “We can realize truth and nonviolence only in the simplicity of village life and this simplicity can be found in the Charkha and all that the Charkha connotes”, Gandhi said.²⁵ In Hind Swaraj, Gandhi has given a sharp and strong criticism of Western civilisation which according to Gandhi posed a much larger threat than colonialism and imperialism. For him, it is the western civilisation that has led to the bondage and slavery of the Indians. Thus, the immediate fight of the Indians was the very process that facilitated the growth of western civilization rather than the struggle for independence. To merely drive the English out of the country is not what Gandhi was seeking.²⁶ He was involved in a broader idea of swaraj rather than just the physical expulsion of the British. It is in this context of achieving real swaraj or self-rule that Gandhi constructed his philosophy of khadi and village industries in India.

Gandhi's distrust for modern civilisation was the seeding grounds for khadi and village industries to emerge not only as an alternative to modern civilisation but as a self-regulating mechanism to deplore and desist all that was against his principles and ethos of a simple and dignified life. He found the possibility only in village life- which according to him was a republic and a self-contained unit. Giving due importance to the villages, Gandhi was foreseeing the nature of Swaraj that the 7 lakh villages will bring. If the villages perish, India will perish too, Gandhi said. So his philosophy and principles were directed towards attaining village swaraj- an idea of ‘a complete republic, independent of its neighbors for its vital wants, where the first concern of every individual will be to grow its own food crops and cotton for its cloth’.²⁷ And thus Gandhi laid down the basic principles of village swaraj which asserts the supremacy of man where a very human being has a right to live, and therefore to find the wherewithal to feed himself and where necessary, to clothe and house himself and thus limit oneself to these necessities.

The road to freedom was not just independence from British colonialism but freedom from wants, desires, and of self-realization which was also instrumental in the larger fight against imperialism. The vedic word ‘swaraj’ which Gandhi often deployed, refraining from using the term ‘independence’ makes him different from the regular freedom fighters. He uniquely deployed swaraj and made a sacred connection with ‘swadeshi’. Khadi and village industries were thus constructed as a swadeshi symbol and had the eligibility for a decentralized village order as idealized by Gandhi. The sector though has been identified by many as a ‘boycott strategy’ of Gandhi actually entailed practical connotations in a society Gandhi envisaged which are - 1) khadi and village industries as a swadeshi and nationalist symbol during the freedom struggle of India to boycott foreign goods and adopt Indian goods; 2) khadi and village industries addressed the economic issues of self-sufficiency and self-reliance and 3) if khadi and village industries are adopted universally it was a solution to the social evils and injustices of Indian society.

There was an ideological construct of khadi and village industries in Gandhi's thought and philosophy. This ideology pertained as a nationalist symbol of adhering to swadeshi or homemade goods instead of foreign goods. While Gandhi gave a call to the Indians to use homegrown goods and wear homespun cloth discarding the foreign mills, cloth, and goods, khadi acquired more prominence ideologically. This was because khadi and village industries were projected not only as a nationalist swadeshi symbol but were associated with a whole plethora of meanings and principles of being virtuous and righteous enough to meet the social evils as well as being sustainable in meeting the needs of both the present and the future generation. The philosophy of khadi and village industries thus apart from its political ideology had social, economic, and philanthropic meanings and implications.

Gandhi wanted to give a clear social message to the Indians via khadi and village industries. His particular concern was the fragmented Hindu society on the basis of caste and the practice of untouchability. To this, he identified true economics which can serve social justice, in promoting the good of all equally. The basis of the practice of untouchability was the economic inequality and the difference in an occupation that was widespread in the country. Gandhi said he wanted to bring about an ‘equalization of status’ and wanted to establish a casteless and classless society.²⁸ For that, engaging in spinning and weaving one’s own cloth and sustaining the traditional village industries for their immediate needs was important. When the whole of society is involved in similar occupations for their immediate needs and wants, there is less differentiation of class and caste. This is what he called true economics where there is leveling of the wealth of the riches in the most nonviolent way possible. This sacred and holy work of weaving one’s own cloth for Gandhi was the path to a non-violent society. With this broader objective, Gandhi wanted everyone to belong to one caste which is of the Harijans- a name he specially coined for the untouchables meaning the ‘children of God’. But Khadi although a symbol of unity, as argued by Emma Tarlo, also divided the nation, where Tarlo cites many instances where khadi was seen both as a fabric of unity as well as differences.²⁹ But what Tarlo misses out on is that the differences existed only as an external piece of cloth, failing to comprehend the larger meaning of swaraj and self-rule that the cloth carries.

Gandhi brought the entire debate of the struggle for independence to the point of adopting swadeshi or homegrown products as the basic way of life. The nucleus of the struggle was brought to the ethical idea of adopting homemade goods. While talking of British colonialism, Gandhi never blamed the British for ruling India but instead blamed the Indians who were copying the Englishmen and welcomed the East India Company with open arms. In a question to the reader in Hind Swaraj Gandhi said, “Who assisted the Company’s officers? Who was tempted at the sight of their silver? Who bought their goods?” To add further he said, “India is being grounded down not under the English heel but under that of modern civilisation”.³⁰ The dependence on and welcoming of Western industry and civilisation was slavery for Gandhi. The swadeshi emblem- khadi and village industries played an active role in the swadeshi movement of the country. Taking the freedom movement to the villages, Gandhi saw freedom not only as freedom from imperialism and colonialism but also as deep-seated inequality and poverty that exist in the country.

Khadi and the village industries of Gandhi worked in harmony with the principles of simplicity and nonviolence. Khadi, hand-spun, and hand-woven cloth were championed because of the simplicity they carried. Though silk was also hand spun and hand woven it was denounced by Gandhi because it involved killing the silk pupae in the process. With a great distrust for modern machinery, it represented a great sin according to Gandhi who wanted to replace the same because it impoverished India. The spinning wheel or the charkha represented the seven hundred thousand villages, which underlined the importance of body labour in a village economy like India. It was a symbol of unity, solidarity, and fraternity among the rich and the poor, high and low. Modern machinery was responsible for unemployment, poverty, and exploitation for it takes on the labour of men. To quote Gandhi's words, “Mechanization is evil when there are more hands than required for the work, as in the case of India”.³¹ Gandhi was concerned with the leisure and the idle hours that will follow, generally unemployment when mechanization takes over. To be certain, Gandhi was not opposed to science and technology, but what bothered him was the very alienation from the basic virtues of life. Khadi and village industries evolved and symbolized not only a remedy and solution to India’s bondage of slavery to British colonialism and imperialism but a whole plethora of meaning, rooted in the village life where pauperism, starvation, and idleness will be unknown.³²

If one reads Gandhi's Hind Swaraj which was written in 1909, a period before the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience Movement, and Quit India Movement; an account of the way to counter British imperialism and colonialism was explained scientifically. The book which was banned in India by the British implanted the seeds for independence which was different from the usual ideas of the leading freedom fighters of India. What differentiated Gandhi was the very idea of independence in ideas and thought and extreme disagreement with the very idea that modern science and technology can change the condition in India. Gandhi saw the root cause of poverty and social evils as well as imperialism and colonialism in excessive dependence on foreign goods. Thus his key to achieving swaraj was made a moral idea, not just limiting itself to expelling the British from the Indian land. His postmodernism was included in his attempt to universalize khadi and village industries as an antithesis of modern civilisation and colonialism.

Thus, khadi and traditional village industries were the whole plethoras of his belief system towards a simple self-sufficient village in India. Through khadi and village industries Gandhi wanted to i) establish a united nation cutting through the differences of caste, class, religion, region, culture, etc. and work towards achieving social justice; ii) make the people self-reliant in meeting their economic needs and iii) work harmoniously in establishing a non-violent societal order.

An answer to capitalism and socialism

Khadi and village industries were an alternate ideology to the two dominating ideologies of the world- capitalism, and socialism. The former is rooted in the industrial capitalist class and private ownership in contrast to the latter which opined for more economic equality through public ownership of the means of production. Gandhi took another way to counter the power centers of the world. No direct warship, no diplomacy with no emphasis on foreign relations with the other countries, diminishing the role of the market Gandhi certainly gave less emphasis on the state’s ownership and control over the mode of production. Rejecting both, Gandhi said, “Nehru wants industrialization, because he thinks that if it is socialized, it would be free from the evils of capitalism. My own view is that the evils are inherent in industrialism, and no amount of socialization can eradicate them³³ while contradicting Jawaharlal Nehru’s idea of socialism. The Indian socialists heavily borrowed ideas from Soviet Russia to counter British imperialism and colonialism.

His idea of industrialism was indigenous to the village life that persists in India. In contrast to the ideology of capitalism and communism which centers its belief in the individual and the community welfare, Gandhi completely dismissed the idea of individual and community interests and sought to expand the larger idea of ‘humanity’ through khadi and village industries. In his words, “there is no place for self-interest in Swadeshi which enjoins the sacrifice of oneself for the family, of the family for the village, of the village for the country, and of the country for humanity”.³⁴ His political thought extends beyond the idea of nation-state, bringing in the idea of humanity, though not completely diminishing the importance of individual welfare as well as community well-being. As discussed earlier, Gandhi considered the growth of cities as an evil thing, unfortunate for mankind and the world.³⁵ For Gandhi, it is through the cities that the British exploited India. Gandhi thought that the cities are built by exploiting the villages and the poorest. The wealth of the cities, as Gandhi was quoted saying, comes from the blood of the villages. So, it is significant that Gandhi was more engaged in fighting an ideology of exploitation rather than the British. Khadi and village industries were constructed to exemplify the villages and as an ideology of swaraj inherent in them.

Through khadi and village industries, Gandhi engaged in a kind of ethical politics, that diverged from the usual power struggle on which both socialism and capitalism based their politics. While capitalism advocated a free market economy, communism advocated state socialism. Both ideologies dominate the world, tussled in a kind of power struggle of having maximum control over others and dominating or regulating the world economy. Khadi and village industries were paved to exercise self-control and self-restraint over greed and passion. This distanced Gandhi from the established and recognized understanding of the economy and the ideologies of the world. Both ideologies were seeking to control the rest of the world. Gandhi emphasized controlling one’s own self, greed, and passions-the rule of the mind over itself.

Khadi and village industries were modeled also as a response to the advanced scientific technology which the West positioned to the backward village life of India which was considered economically backward and socially contaminated. The West which claimed to be superior in technology and science was guiding India on a similar path of industrialisation. Khadi and village industries were seen as having the potential to revive village India to progress, upliftment, and economic self-sufficiency. These virtues of khadi and village industries have been central to the Indian setup, where the village was taken into consideration. Gandhi's ideas came from the villages. His vision of development was seen rooted in village life and simplicity. When the world was counting on heavy and modern industrialization as the path to development, Gandhi saw traditional and simple village industries as the solution to meet basic needs. His ideas of development were based on simplicity. Khadi and village industries were not only a means to revive the lost traditional art and craft of India, but a greater idea of self-realization and a path towards progress and development, unlike the Western ideas. It was to lay a foundation for a society that was secular, modern, and self-reliant. It was also a path towards community living and sharing. Ria Modak sees Gandhi's principles as more tinted towards neoliberal capitalism, including his Khadi programme, because his ideas of swaraj synthesize with the idea of the self, and human dignity and resonate with individualism.³⁶ But Modak fails to see Gandhi, as not falling within the binaries of science and technology and giving primacy to the moral and spiritual faculties of man rather than the economic and moral needs. Modak deduces khadi and Gandhi's principles to human needs and wants, whereas Gandhi never reduced the human to a mere economic being and totally diminished the role of the market.

Gandhi to revive the village of India, developed an idea that remains relevant to all the existing forms of Western models of civilisation and the future repercussions of advanced industrialism and liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. Western civilization which claimed to be inherently progressive in character in terms of science and technology and modern education was challenged by Gandhi who sought to bring the idea of progress within the villages of India. The British in order to develop India from deep-rooted social evils and poverty introduced modern education and science and technology in production. Gandhi said, “Industrialism is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind”.³⁷ Gandhi sought to bring the focus to the villages of India, where in Western capitalism the city is made the area of concentration and development. The socialist countries which deployed state-owned public goods and services as the key to counter capitalism, Gandhi sought to renovate and make the villages self-sufficient and independent without any help and support from the state. Gandhi constructed the idea of an ideal village and sought to organize human society on this basis.

Ecological Harmony

Khadi and village industries are sustainable. Sustainable development technically was included in the developmental agenda in the 1980s when environmental protection became an increasing concern around the globe. In the era of globalization the concept of ‘sustainable development’ assumes great importance in Gandhi's khadi and village industries. Khadi and village industries time and again were emphasized for their quality to meet the needs of the millions of Indians without any consequences in the future. Khadi and village industries as an economy, were sustainable in the long run. The tremendous degradation of the environment through heavy industries, pollution from industrial wastes, and technological modernization of the economy resulted in the inclusion of the environment in the development programme of all the countries of the world.³⁸ The growing need to preserve the earth’s ecology has prompted the recent politics of development, and the debates over sustainable development or the environment debate which has become a concern all over the world. Khadi and village industries have claimed to meet the values of being ‘environment friendly’. While environmental concern has not been directly addressed by M.K Gandhi in any of his works, Gandhi had indirectly said once, ‘Earth provides enough to satisfy man’s need and not every man’s greed.³⁹ Khadi and village industries in the due course have been connected with human life and its quality. At the time Gandhi constructed the economy of khadi and village industries, ‘sustainable development’ or sustainability, in the long run, was not a concern of the world at large. Khadi and village industries were an answer to the heavy industrialization and have always stood as a challenge to it, where the cause behind the emergence of the sector was the barbaric culture of modern civilisation.

Postmodern Gandhi

Khadi as a symbol of unity and fraternity thus was propagated by Gandhi in a divisive and plural country. Gandhi envisaged a society where ‘there will be neither paupers nor beggars, nor high or low, neither millionaire employers nor half-starved employees, nor intoxicating drinks or drugs’.⁴⁰ Khadi and village industry was championed as means of self-reliance and self-independence not because the people engaged in the traditional craft can become so without any dependence on foreign industries but because the industries are themselves self-reliant and required no special support. In the words of Gandhi, “I have ruled out organized industries because they do not need any special support. They can stand on their own legs and in the present state of our awakening, can easily command a market”.⁴¹ Big machines were positioned not only on the inefficacies and ineffectiveness in a village India but also on the moral vices which didn’t conform with Gandhi's idea of livelihood. Machines were the source of idleness and rising unemployment and hold little value in human life. Gandhi’s schema thus, has a moral and philanthropic idea rather than just economics.

The decentralized village order was the basis of the ideal society of Gandhi. He wanted to establish economic equality through it, which is the only master key to a nonviolent society. The economic equality which Gandhi envisaged was essential to abolish the eternal conflict between capital and labour and leveling out the distinctions between the rich and the poor. For that rural economy needed to be revived and be the centre of the economy from where all other activities would follow. Agriculture along with khadi and traditional village industries remains the backbone of humane society in Gandhi's thought. Gandhi’s main concern was to live together ina society guided by communitarian feelings where there was an increasing sense of individuality and hierarchy in the ranks of occupation. For that Gandhi gave more emphasis on the broader ethical function khadi and village industries can perform. Khadi and village industries were a substitute for armed revolts and the moderation policy with the British to attain swaraj. Swaraj thus was not limited to independence from the British per se but a greater idea of self-rule and self-control from greed, wants, and passion. Khadi and village industries were Satyagraha, the truth force and the soul force.

Thus, khadi for Gandhi was ‘a wholesome swadeshi mentality, a determination to find all the necessaries of life in India and that too through the labour and intellect of the village”.⁴² The villages in Gandhian schema were never to swipe away the cities and ruin them, rather they constitute the self-contained units that will voluntarily serve the cities. The British involved in destroying the village life of India were given a fitting response by Gandhi who got involved in reconstructing the same. Reconstructing the rural by adopting simple khadi and village industries to fulfill the necessities of life was a postmodern approach to counter both capitalist and socialist tendencies of power concentration. Dispersal of power among the federating units was the approach Gandhi adopted. The method to counter the modern tendencies of the world caters to the principle of non-violence per se. Distancing from the violent revolutionary methods which use force to achieve ends, Gandhi was never a non-revolutionary in any way. Gandhi wanted to make a revolutionary change in the minds of the Indians by making them understand the true meaning of swaraj or self-rule through khadi and village industries. The revolution existed in regulating the self and limiting oneself to the basic needs of simplicity and moderation. Khadi and village industries thus were a non-violent revolutionary way to counter the rapid expansion of modern science and technology which was paramount in both capitalist and socialist ideologies. It constituted the truth, the soul force to resist modernization, luxury, and comfort. Contextualizing khadi and village industries, thus allows us to understand its virtuous and symbolic features in a deeply impoverished country. The postmodern attitude of Gandhi was reflected in the sense that he never considered the fact that western science and technology could solve the deep-rooted problems of the country like casteism, untouchability, economic dependence, inequality, and the like. He was deeply skeptical of the same and questioned its ideas and values, rejecting its myth and symbolized khadi and village industries which can bring in progress and civilisation. His preference for khadi and simple traditional industries was constructed keeping into account the mass unemployment, idleness, and ecological harmony.

In an era of market economies and political democracies, Gandhi's idea of khadi and village industries evolved as relevant to Indian society, polity, and economy. His theory and formulation of khadi and village industries were based on a non-reductionist approach, it never perceived the world in material terms, which capitalism and Marxism did. Gandhi rejected Western rationality of technological progress through khadi and village industries, and reinstated the faith in community life, moral values, and simple rural life. Gandhi's khadi and village industries cannot be reduced as an answer to anti-colonialism or heavy industrialism. It was an answer to the existing binaries of the economic world. The village economy was paramount for Gandhi, for it represented India in its totality and thus it was essential to reclaiming the village space which has been lost in the garb of excessive modernisation and industrialisation. Gandhi's thought was original and oriental, not derivative from the discourses of the West. This reclamation of the village space through khadi and traditional village industries was the centre of his political thought. The question of rights, equality, fraternity, communal unity could be addressed only when real village swaraj is achieved. For that, khadi and village remain paramount in his action and belief. Gandhi just didn’t take khadi and village industries for granted. He did not just equate it with salvation from colonialism and imperialism. For Gandhi Khadi and village industries were a guiding principle of self-control, and self-perseverance, and his uniqueness lies in his urge to understand the meaning of life through it and not be carried away by delusions and temptations of any kind. Khadi and village industries of Gandhi’s schema of thought are not a means but also an end in itself.

Conclusion

Peter Gonsalves rightly comprehended Gandhi's use of Khadi as a powerful ‘nonverbal communication’, different from the established practices of bringing a revolution in the minds of the people in an unusual way.⁴³ While modernism was hell-bound to improve the social and economic evils of India through modern science and technology, Gandhi constructed his idea of khadi and village industries against that prevalent notion. In fact, village India of Gandhi can be seen as having postmodern attributes that provide an alternative to the binaries of the world and also to the western construct that modern science and technology can solve the existing problems of the world. Gandhi never reduced his philosophy to material terms and was non-reductionist in his approach. As capitalism and socialism viewed man and the existing relations in purely economic terms, Gandhi's construction of khadi and village industries was a different philosophy altogether. This became revolutionary in its own roots, and from which emerged not only his way of facing the adversaries of the world but also a thought system that had postmodern attributes of change and development.

Notes and References:

1. Lisa Trivedi, Clothing Gandhi's Nation, Homespun and Modern India. (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2007).
2. D Joshi, Gandhiji on Khadi. (Mumbai: Gandhi Book Centre, 2002), p. 4.
3. Rahul Ramagundam, Gandhi's Khadi. A History of Contention and Conciliation. (New Delhi: Orient Longman Private Limited, 2008).
4. Lisa Trivedi, Clothing Gandhi's Nation, Homespun and Modern India. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007).
5. Lolyd Rudolph & Sussane Rudolph, Postmodern Gandhi and other essays. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
6. Lolyd Rudolph & Sussane Rudolph, Postmodern Gandhi and other essays (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 200.
7. Village Industries formed an integral part of the economics of M. K. Gandhi but during the nationalist struggle it was khadi which was more popularized and symbolized.
8. In this context Yovesh C. Sharma has traced the art of hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the prehistoric age of the country. In fact Sharma has traced the historical lineage of the art from the Vedic Age to the ancient and medieval periods to the colonial period. YC Sharma, Cotton Khadi in Indian Economy (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1999), pp. 5-10. In this context Vijaya Ramaswamy also narrates the ancient history of ‘cotton textiles’ in the country specifically in Southern part of the country from centers like Kanchipuram, Tanjavur and Madurai. Cotton industry in ancient India as Ramaswamy depicts was a flourishing industry which the European industry didn’t even knew. To quote Ramaswamy, “Herodotus (fifth century B.C) thought that cotton was a kind of animal hair.” V Ramaswamy, Textiles and Weavers in South India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
9. Sharma, loc.cit.
10. The idiom ‘nationalist vocabulary’ has been used by Emma Tarlo to signify the visual symbol of khadi as a struggle against the colonial rule. See Tarlo, E. Khadi. Accessed on 20-03-2015.
11. D Joshi, Gandhiji on Khadi. (Mumbai: Gandhi Book Centre, 2002), p. 32.
12. Ibid, p. 39.
13. Gandhi, M.K. (1941). Constructive Programme. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, p. 10.
14. S Jaju, The Ideology of the Charkha (Rajghat: Akhil Bharat Sarva-Seva-Sangh-Publication,1958), p. 24.
15. MK Gandhi, Village Swaraj, compiled by H. M. Vyas. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), pp. 149-170.
16. MK Gandhi, India of My Dreams, (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2011), pp. 105-106.
17. M K Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1909).
18. MK Gandhi, An Autobiography or The Story of my Experiments With Truth (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1927), p. 450.
19. Ibid.
20. M K Gandhi, Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1941).
21. D Joshi, Gandhiji on Khadi (Mumbai: Gandhi Book Centre, 2002), p. 14.
22. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 3
23. A Parel, ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 73.
24. Ibid, p. 130.
25. Ibid, p. 150.
26. Ibid, p. 26.
27. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 31.
28. Ibid, p. 37.
29. Emma Tarlo, Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007), pp. 94-128.
30. A Parel, ‘Hind Swaraj’ and Other Writings (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 40-42.
31. MK Gandhi, Village Industries (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2011), p. 11.
32. Ibid, p. 18.
33. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 17.
34. M K Gandhi, Character and Nation Building (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2011), p. 15.
35. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 25.
36. Ria Modak, “Khadi Capitalism: Gandhian Neoliberalism and the Making of Modern India”, The Brown Journal of Philosophy, Politics & Economics, Accessed on 25.01.2023.
37. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 11.
38. Participation of countries in the various summits on ‘sustainable development’ has been noteworthy. In 1992, the Rio summit
39. Mehta, K. Increasing Relevance of Gandhi. Accessed on 20-03-2015.
40. M K Gandhi, Village Swaraj (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 2012), p. 10.
41. Ibid, p. 151.
42. A Parel, ‘Hind Swaraj’ and other writings (United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 173.
43. Gonsalves also understands the different verbal communication of Gandhi which includes different languages used in his writings, speaking skills, journalism through letters etc. The non-verbal communication was silence, fasting clothing and physical appearance. Itis this verbal and non-verbal communication of Gandhi that symbolized him as a charismatic leader. P Gonsalves, Clothing for Liberation, A Communicative Analysis of Gandhi's Swadeshi Revolution. (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2010).

Courtesy: This article has been reproduced from the Gandhi Marg, Volume 44, Number 4, January-March 2023.

* Adrita Gogot teaches Political Science at Lalit Chandra Bharali College, Guwahati, Assam- 781011. Her research interests are Gandhian studies and peasant studies. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, on peasant mobilisation in contemporary Assam. Email: adritagogoi19@gmail.com